


A Thief in the Sunset

by TheKnightsWhoSayBook



Category: The Queen's Thief - Megan Whalen Turner
Genre: F/M, go to sleep eugenides
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-20
Updated: 2015-09-20
Packaged: 2018-04-22 11:27:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 438
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4833638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheKnightsWhoSayBook/pseuds/TheKnightsWhoSayBook
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Attolis needs to stop climbing the palace roofs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Thief in the Sunset

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic to be posted on ao3 and only the second QT fic I've ever written, so bear with me.

It’s sunset and the sky is as red as the rubies against her forehead. The tiled roofs are silhouetted inky black against the bloody sun, edges sharp and scalloped. And His Royal Highness, her husband and King of Getting on her Last Nerve, is there also, infinitely small against the bulk of the megaron.  
  
He’s as dark and featureless as the towers and parapets around him but she doesn’t need to see his face. Even from down here his hook is a narrow crescent on the end of his right arm, and his movements are firm and graceful and nerve-wracking.  
  
“Get him down,” she says to Teleus, without taking her eyes off the boy several stories above them.  
  
“I’ll get Costis.”  
  
“No,” Eugenides calls down, “Don’t get Costis. He needs to go to sleep so he can handle everything I’ve got planned for tomorrow.”  
  
Attolia frowns, her face barely turned up to him, wondering how he could possibly hear them all the way up there. “What have you planned for tomorrow?”  
  
“Lots of things. That’s why I’m up here, clearing my head.”  
  
She is not reassured. “Get Costis.”  
  
“Don’t get Costis,” Eugenises repeats, irritated.  
  
“Then come down.”  
  
“Come up.”  
  
“I’ll get Costis,” Teleus sighs.  
  
The king snaps for the third time, “Don’t get Costis!”  
  
“You have two options. Come down, or Costis will come and get you.” She is not playing games tonight, and he is not risking his life anymore.  
  
“Three options. I can come down, Costis can be grumpy, or you can come up.”  
  
“Attolis–”  
  
“My queen. Come dance with me.” He sinks down to his knees in order to see her better, and in the dimming brightness of the sunset he is finally more visible. He looks the way he hasn’t in a long time, relaxed and open and hopeful.  
  
Teleus backpedals as far as he can without actually leaving and Attolia stares at the figure on the roof without expression. She’s thinking about what happened to his mother.  
  
Eugenides is thinking about the way her hair, unbound, swings around her shoulders when they dance in the ballroom, and the soft wind that’s blowing across the sky tonight.  
  
“You have one minute,” she finally says, and continues on her way into the megaron. By the time she reaches her rooms he’s lying on the bed, staring up at the ceiling, and she almost believes he didn’t notice her entering.  
  
“Some other time,” he says as she pauses in the doorway, watching him. “I’ll teach you how.” There is still something open and hopeful about him, a little bit of sunset caught shining in his eyes.

  



End file.
